


happiness slipped through her fingers

by vindoletta



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Character Study, Depression, F/F, Madokami, Mental Instability, POV Akemi Homura, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Rebellion Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23981821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindoletta/pseuds/vindoletta
Summary: She would make Madoka’s sacrifice be worth it, even if the world wasn’t worthy of it.
Relationships: Akemi Homura/Kaname Madoka
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: femslashficlets: queer women's literature quotes challenge





	happiness slipped through her fingers

**Author's Note:**

> "I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me." Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt

Homura went through life as one would trudge across a vast, empty dessert. She barely slept in her own apartment, filled with wrinkled wrappers and empty fast food containers hidden from view by the home hologram. The time traveler prefered instead to observe the urban constellation of city lights from skyscrapers, scouting for any disturbances - in wait to fulfill her mission once again.

Nothing was quite the same, yet nothing had changed much. But that was to be expected, right? She had to keep fighting to protect what _she_ (pink tresses, pain and uncertainty concealed by a brilliant smile) had given her own life to protect. 

Time turned into liquid sand whenever Homura tried to remember how long had she been in this new universe. Months. Days. Years. Seconds. None of it held any meaning anymore. No matter how hard she tried to hold the memories pressed tightly in her cupped palms, they would slip between her fingers before she could drink in the sounds, the sights, the emotions of a girl that didn’t exist. Yet, the longing a ribbon, a childlike voice or a pink sunrise after a specially long hunt evoked would leave her shivering, breathless. 

Homura hadn’t fulfilled her most precious wish, but she hadn’t failed. Not yet. Even if every day it was harder to believe her own words.

She kept on hunting more and more wraiths every night. She kept on sleeping less and less. It was nothing Homura wasn’t used to, she had to while she tried to outsmart the white rat in the previous universe after all; she could deal with it. The dark cubes didn’t replenish her magic as fast as grief seeds did, but that was okay. She could fight with guns and bombs instead if the need arose. There was no reason to worry about herself, not that she specially cared anyways. The only thing that mattered was the mission.

That was what had ever mattered. 

She would **make** Madoka’s sacrifice be worth it, even if the world wasn’t worthy of it.

_(We will see each other again someday, Homura-chan.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Set in between the ending of the anime and the beginning of Rebellion. I wanted to write how her sanity starts fraying and how it leads to the events of the movie.
> 
> Written for the Queer Women's Literature Quotes challenge of Dreamwith's writing comunity femslashficlets.


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